October 26, 2026 – We wanted to share a powerful visual story for National Liver Awareness Month. It’s about two Tampa Bay-area liver transplant recipients who recently met the donors connected to their transplants, including two altruistic donors– complete strangers. An altruistic liver donor is a person who chooses to donate part of their liver to help someone in need, without having a personal connection to the recipient. The liver then regenerates in both the donor and recipient.
Two patients (Frank and Angela) who needed liver transplants were connected with living donors (Dominique and Natalia) through a paired exchange at the TGH Transplant Institute. When Frank’s niece Natalia learned she couldn’t donate directly to him because they weren’t a match, she joined a paired exchange and donated to Angela, another patient in need. Dominique, an altruistic donor who volunteered to help someone she didn’t know, donated to Frank. Even more incredible, Dominique previously donated a kidney to another person.
Please feel free to use the compelling video clips, photos and interviews of the recipients meeting their donors for the first time, as well as sound from one of their surgeons:
https://mediashare.tgh.org/paired-transplant
ABOUT TAMPA GENERAL HOSPITAL
Tampa General Hospital, Florida’s premier academic health system, is a 1,530-bed not-for-profit network of hospital and outpatient services spanning Florida. As the only center for Level I trauma and a comprehensive burn care center serving 23 counties, Tampa General delivers world-class care. The system’s hospitals include Tampa General Hospital, Tampa General Rehabilitation Hospital, Tampa General Behavioral Health Hospital, all in Tampa; Tampa General Brooksville, Tampa General Spring Hill and Tampa General Crystal River. Tampa General is the highest-ranked hospital in Tampa Bay in U.S. News & World Report’s 2026-2027 Best Hospitals for 11 consecutive years, with five medical specialties ranking among the top 50, two additional medical specialties ranked among the top 100 best hospital programs and two specialties ranked in the top 10% in the United States. As the first hospital in Florida to open a clinical command center for real-time situational awareness, the academic health system has elevated its digital care coordination center to the next level by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and its analytics platform across inpatient and outpatient care to ensure patients receive leading-edge care as quickly and safely as possible. Tampa General’s commitment to growing and developing its team members is recognized by four prestigious Forbes magazine rankings — in the 2026 America’s Best Large Employers ranked as the Tampa Bay region’s #1 employer in the healthcare category for the sixth year in a row, the 2026 America’s Best Employers for Company Culture, in the top 100 for the 2026 America’s Best Employers for New Grads and the 2026 America’s Best Employers for Women.
Tampa General is the area’s safety-net hospital, caring for anyone regardless of ability to pay; in fiscal year 2024, Tampa General provided a net community benefit of approximately $289.1 million in the form of healthcare for underinsured patients, community education and financial support to community health organizations in Tampa Bay. It is recognized as one of the leading adult solid organ transplant centers in the nation and is the primary teaching hospital for the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. With five medical helicopters, Tampa General transports critically injured or ill patients from surrounding counties to receive the advanced care their conditions require. Tampa General has a nationally accredited comprehensive stroke center and its 32-bed Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit is the largest on the West Coast of Florida. It is home to the Muma Children’s Hospital at TGH, the Jennifer Leigh Muma 82-bed neonatal intensive care unit and a nationally accredited rehabilitation center. Tampa General’s footprint includes TGH North, which consists of three hospitals and several outpatient locations in Citrus and Hernando counties; Tampa General Medical Group Primary Care offices; TGH Family Care Center Kennedy; TGH outpatient centers; TGH Virtual Health; and TGH Imaging outpatient radiology centers throughout Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties. Tampa Bay area residents receive world-class care from the TGH Urgent Care, powered by the Fast Track network of clinics. To see a medical care professional live anytime, anywhere on a smartphone, tablet or computer, visit Virtual Health | Tampa General Hospital (tgh.org). For more information, go to www.tgh.org.
